TO TACKLE DROUGHT, GOVT UPS SPENDING

The Cen­tre may spend more than half of its an­nual ru­ral devel­op­ment bud­get by June to tackle drought. “We have an an­nual MGNREGA bud­get of Rs38,500 crore. Out of it, we have al­ready re­leased Rs19,340 crore. By June we are likely to dis­trib­ute an ad­di­tional Rs10,000 crore...” said a se­nior of­fi­cial of the ru­ral min­istry. P8